Tips for Creating a Ministry Website

If anyone needs ad-free, free web hosting for their church, please PM me and I can setup an account for you (or see the link in my signature).

We run a VPS (nothing special, dual opteron node located at colo4dallas, premium Level (3) and Internap connectivity) featuring CentOS (linux), cPanel 11 (control panel), Fantastico (script installer), PHP5 (server side language), MySQL5 (database), etc... It's probably more for the intermediate user, since we don't have a easy to use web builder (licenses for those are A LOT). But we do have FrontPage Extensions installed, and Fantastico lets you easily install a number of easy to use CMS's.

Free accounts have 50MB disk space, 700MB bandwidth, and unmetered features- but if you need more disk space or bandwidth, please let me know and I'll try to work something out.

 

:laugh: :type:

 

All of you had to have studied computers either all or most of your lives. I do good to turn mine on. Anything that I do beyond that is an accident...:laugh:
My son's high school just assigned every student in the school a laptop computer. Maybe he will learn more on how to do these things that you all are speaking of. If nothing else, learn what the words mean....I understand Greek better then computers. But then I never messed with one until lately.

 

I understand none of this either, but how easy is it to set up a web site there? Can you update it easily and often? Detail man, details (in English, please).

 

The webiste we use is published through Frontpage, which to me is one of the easiest publishing tools available. With that said, it had its limitations. Fortunately, someone with little knowledge in computer langauge and such can use it with just a little bit of practice.

 

In English:
We simply provide free hosting without ads.

What a Web Host does:
Web Hosting is the service that allows you to put your files on the Internet. Web hosts provide a fast server with an always on connection to the Internet. Generally, they also take care of all the technical stuff (server management). And they provide technical support. Web design is another service that is usually taken care of by the client (generally not by the web host).

How easy is it to set up a web site:
It can be easy. It can also be hard. It all really depends on what type of site you want and how well one is with learning something new. A basic site requires HTML coding. A lot of people don't know HTML, so they rely on web page builder programs that do the coding for them.

Some people like to use FrontPage (like Bro. Williams mentioned). FrontPage is a very easy to use program that lets you build web sites, and with a little practice, you can produce some very professional results. I used to use FrontPage myself. Our server features FrontPage Extensions, which in English, lets FrontPage talk to the server.

Other web building programs are available (such as Nvu, Dreamweaver, etc...). I use Dreamweaver now. It's a lot like FrontPage, but has a more powerful coding interface.

If you can't code HTML, and you don't want to use a program that does it for you, you might find a CMS useful. CMS stands for Content Management System. They are very appropriate for churches since they manage all your pages and provide a simple interface to post new sites, with no need to know HTML. And unlike FrontPage or Dreamweaver, they are entirely web-based, so you (or others) can update the site whenever they want to and wherever they want to. It can take a bit to learn about all of the features, but everyone I've spoke to that builds church sites with a CMS has had nothing but high praise for CMS systems.

A popular and easy to use CMS is Drupal. It's very efficient, very simple, yet expandable, and is perfect for a church or ministry site. They can take a few minutes to install, so our server has a feature called Fantastico De Luxe. It's basically an installer for commonly used scripts, like CMS's.

If you are still completely lost, I can set up a free account for you and install Drupal on it. That way you can get your feet wet and see if it's right for you. There's also plenty of people here on BaptistBoard that use Drupal as well, I'm sure they could help you as well if you need any tips along the way. If it turns out it's still too complicated and you think you might try another place, you can cancel the account- no worries. It's free anyway, so there's no risk giving it a try. :thumbs:

Let me know if I can help out. :type:

 

Is this similar to Mambo which has modules you can modify? I tried this out once and it gave someone the ability (admin) to log in and add in announcements, syndicated news, etc. But it seems like this was on a special web hosting account. I have a friend who has a website at
http://www.prophezine.com that uses a special modular format. He really likes it. I have a website at http://www.prophecyforum.com that I'd like to redesign, but I have so many pages now that it would take forever to make everything look the same. Maybe redesign just the main page and a couple of others.:type:

 

Yeah, it's a lot like Mambo/Joomla. I've used Mambo in the past as well. It too is a great CMS, but it has a larger footprint and isn't as efficient. It can also perform poorly (compared to other CMS's) if you get a lot of traffic. Drupal is a lot more lightweight and has a simpler interface, IMO.

Mambo/Joomla is probably more feature-filled, has more modules and plugins available, and probably has a lot better themes made for it- but I just don't like the admin interface. There's just too much eyecandy and busyness. Sometimes I just prefer simplicity over power.

Mambo, Joomla, Drupal, Geeklog, Xoops, etc... all rely on a PHP/MySQL equipped server. Most servers have PHP and MySQL installed, but most budget hosts don't. Fantastico can auto install all of those above (there's probably about a dozen CMS's it will auto-install).

One other thing as you've mentioned that I really like about CMS's is they handle all the pages and take care of design consistency. Using a software web editor doesn't always produce consistent design. Design consistency probably has the biggest impact on overall professionalism that a site projects. So having a system taking care of that is a big relief for those coming from a static site.

 

I went over to the Prophezine website and checked and he is using the dotnetnuke application, which is great for his particular needs; that is, a membership site with login capabilities. It utilizes an ASP platform. I decided that I wasn't ready for this, so I stuck with my made-from-scratch site, which is basically built from tables. Since I built mine, I am better able to fix it when something goes wrong. I tried a forum, but I couldn't ever figure out how to keep the spam out, so I deleted it. I would love to start up a new one, but the time factor can be a real turn-off.